MEDITATION QUOTES: 30 top quotations to inspire your practice

When sitting in meditation, say, “That’s not my business!” with every thought that comes by. – Ajahn Chah

Meditation is not passive sitting in silence. It is sitting in awareness, free from distraction, and realizing the clear understanding that arises from concentration. – Thich Nhat Hanh

Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively. – Sharon Salzberg

There are many ways to calm a negative energy without suppressing or fighting it. You recognize it, you smile to it, and you invite something nicer to come up and replace it; you read some inspiring words, you listen to a piece of beautiful music, you go somewhere in nature, or you do some walking meditation. – Thich Nhat Hanh

True Meditation is the space in which everything gets revealed, everything gets seen, everything gets experienced. And as such, it lets go of itself. We don’t even let go. It lets go of itself. – Adyashanti

Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

Meditation has made me happy, loving, and peaceful—but not every single moment of the day. I still have good times and bad, joy and sorrow. Now I can accept setbacks more easily, with less sense of disappointment and personal failure, because meditation has taught me how to cope with the profound truth that everything changes all the time. – Sharon Salzberg

Mindfulness meditation should be more than just watching what you are doing. What you really need to watch is your motivation. – Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Meditation is not a matter of trying to achieve ecstasy, spiritual bliss, or tranquillity, nor is it attempting to become a better person. It is simply the creation of a space in which we are able to expose and undo our neurotic games, our self-deceptions, our hidden fears and hopes. – Pema Chodron

Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake. – Thomas Merton

And meditation is nothing but enjoying your beautiful aloneness. Celebrating yourself; that’s what meditation is all about. – Osho

The Way to do is to be. – Lao Tzu

Meditation is like a single log of wood. Insight and investigation are one end of the log; calm and concentration are the other end. If you lift up the whole log, both sides come up at once. Which is concentration and which is insight? Just this mind. – Ajahn Chah

The flowering of love is meditation. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

Meditation is painful in the beginning but it bestows immortal Bliss and supreme joy in the end. – Swami Sivananda

Practicing meditation is just like breathing. While working we breathe, while sleeping we breathe, while sitting down we breathe… Why do we have time to breathe? Because we see the importance of the breath, we can always find time to breathe. In the same way, if we see the importance of meditation practice we will find the time to practice. – Ajahn Chah

Thinking is the natural activity of the mind. Meditation is not about stopping your thoughts. Meditation is simply a process of resting the mind in its natural state, which is open to and naturally aware of thoughts, emotions, and sensations as they occur. – Eric Swanson, Yongey Rinpoche Mingyur

To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

One way to access the field is through the daily practice of silence, meditation, and non-judgment. Spending time in nature will also give you access to the qualities inherent in the field: infinite creativity, freedom, and bliss. – Deepak Chopra

The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms. – Thich Nhat Hanh A

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity. – Swami Sivananda

Instead of ‘watching the thinker,’ you can also create a gap in the mind stream simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation. – Eckhart Tolle

Mindfulness meditation is the embrace of any and all mind states in awareness, without preferring one to another. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

Eventually, meditation will make our mind calm, clear, and as concentrated as a laser which we can focus at will. This capacity of one-pointed attention is the essence of genius. When we have this mastery over attention in everything we do, we have a genius for life. – Eknath Easwaran

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Misattribution Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity. – Voltaire Source: This quote is from “Practical lessons in Yoga” (1967) by Swami Sivananda; Page: 106. Misattribution: This quote is often misattributed to Voltaire, but no authentic source for this attribution is yet found.